


The Stroke of Midnight

by MissFLT



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Fluff, Grief, New Year, Rey Needs A Hug, Worry, ben solo's job sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:23:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFLT/pseuds/MissFLT
Summary: Ben Solo has been on a mission for three weeks, but he was only supposed to be gone for one. Rey is worrying herself to death, even though it's New Year's Eve and all she can think about is him.





	The Stroke of Midnight

Opening her eyes was almost painful. She reached over to his side of the bed, and there was nothing. No heat. No dent. No creases. She had wound herself up in the sheet that he would ordinarily anchor down as she slept, tossing and turning all through the night and only stilling when he held her in his arms. She scrunched her eyes closed.

She could hardly breathe she missed Ben so much.

It was the first time they had been apart since they had sealed their rollercoaster romance with her moving into his place. It was much larger, much prettier, and smelt so much better than her little closet in Unkar Plutt’s building. She hardly had anything to contribute to the home, aside from some personal effects and a bunch of cheap clothing that looked really weird alongside his in the walk-in cupboard.

By all rights, they should never have ended up together. She worked for a human rights law firm that advocated against sending troops to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and against the entire war; he was a top man at the Pentagon, working on tough recon and recovery missions. He had mostly been stationed in the Pentagon itself, doing his magic with technology and drones to find and rescue personnel lost in the deserts of war. Occasionally he would travel the country to confer with other techies or to aid in their training.

He had never been assigned a job abroad. Until now.

Now Rey hadn’t spoken to him for three weeks. He had promised to check in every day, but that had stopped about a week into his assignment. He had said she shouldn’t worry. And that he may go dark for a while as the mission travelled through fragile territories.

But hearing his reassurances and experiencing his absence were two completely different things.

Rey blinked her eyes, a tear she didn’t know had pooled in the corner of her eye dripping on to the soft sheets she had chosen for the bed. She thought back to the day they had walked into the linen store. She had never spent a dollar more than necessary on anything, but this time she had: he had given her free rein.

‘But I simply can’t pick anything if I know you don’t like it!’ she had whined.

‘I don’t care what you pick, Rey,’ he had said simply, with that sideways smirk that emphasised his long dimple. ‘As long as you pick it.’ He had held her close when they arrived home with bags and bags full of colourful linens and curtains, pulling her towards him with a steady hand in the curve of her back, and kissed her so deeply she felt like a jellyfish tugged around in his ocean. The shopping bags remained packed for the entire weekend.

Three weeks without hearing from him was already two weeks longer than he said he would be gone for. His supervisor, Poe Dameron, called her every second day to update her, but his assurances - which were everything from technical malfunctions to avoiding political issues, and very often nothing but proclamations that he was certain everything was alright - didn’t help her imagination at all. She couldn’t help picturing him as a hostage, caught in the crossfire, lying in a ditch somewhere, becoming nothing but a white cross on Memorial Hill. She was always told she had a vivid imagination, but it was doing her no good right now. How she felt now was strangely like grief, and that was one emotion she never wanted, especially not about Ben.

She came back to the present as the alarm went off, clutching the sheet on his side of the bed until her knuckles turned white. She turned over to look at the green digits of the clock on her side of the bed and spotted the calendar. It was already the 31st of December. The big red circle around the day reminded her that they were to attend Finn and Rose’s first New Year’s Party. She groaned into the pillow, thinking that it was the last thing she wanted to do now, with everything, but that she had promised. And Rey never broke promises.

\---

It was raining on New Year’s Eve. Rey had dressed as smartly as she could on an empty stomach and a broken heart, but her umbrella did nothing to stave off the rain that was being blown around her. She felt as though the water droplets were her grief made real, soaking into her skin and turning her to ice.

When she arrived at Finn and Rose’s door, and he opened it to reveal a cluster of people, the heat from inside searing her cold face, his face simply dropped.

‘I..I’m sorry I’m late,’ Rey managed to clatter through her teeth.

‘Peanut! Why didn’t you take an Uber!?’ Finn rushed to her side, stealing her umbrella and removing her now-soaked coat.

‘I n…needed to clear my head a bit.’ Finn didn’t believe her tight smile for even a moment, taking in her haggard appearance.

He steered her into the lounge, pushed her down on a couch, and covered her shoulders with a checkered throw hanging over the backrest. He sat next to her, close as a best friend could, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

‘You’ve not heard anything?’

She couldn’t stop the tears at that. ‘Oh, Peanut, you should’ve stayed at home,’ Finn said understandingly, ‘But I’m glad you came’. He enveloped her as she sobbed quietly into his neck.

It felt so good to be held, so good that someone was there for her. Before Finn, she had been so alone, and then Ben had turned her entire life upside down. Finn was the one thing that kept her grounded, stopped the world from spinning on its head. He sat with her for what felt like ages, as people came to ask him for more snacks, to offer a drink or a handshake. Eventually, Rey told him she felt much better, practically pushing him away to entertain his other guests. She didn’t move from the spot, though.

She didn’t even move when Armitage Hux, Finn’s superior, sidled up to her making small talk. He obviously didn’t know who she was, but the look she gave him when he slipped his hand on thigh was enough to show him she wasn’t even remotely interested.

She felt numb. **Ben was supposed to be there**. They were supposed to be in the throng of people, him spinning her around as they danced to nondescript music and counted the minutes to midnight. He was supposed to be the one she looked at three seconds before the clock struck 12, steeling herself for his lips that always delivered breathless kisses and softly spoken words. Now she sat here, all alone, worrying herself to death.

It felt like she had sat there for only a few minutes, but a few hours must have passed because Finn was handing out glasses of champagne and turning down the music in preparation for the countdown. She took a glass from Rose, who delicately patted her shoulder in understanding before leaving to hand out more glasses.

There were still about 10 minutes before the countdown, and Rey did not want to be there when midnight struck. She did not want to sit and think about how Ben’s lips should help her seal the last year and take her into the new one when she didn’t even know where he was. She slipped out of the front door, taking her checkered throw with her and leaving the champagne glass on the side table, sweating in the heat of the room full of people.

The cool air revived Rey’s senses. She breathed it in as she leaned against the closed door. Finn had still not replaced the bulb above the door, but she was grateful for the dark. It allowed her to appreciate the light playing on the pools of water in the road, see the water droplets skating through the sky towards the ground, see the car pull up quietly along the sidewalk and a large man climb out, tugging a suitcase from the trunk. Rey mused that it must be a latecomer to the party, though she wouldn’t have bothered herself if she had arrived so late. She sat down under the patio ceiling, on a swinging chair she had tried to persuade Ben would look great on their balcony, and watched from the darkness the rain and orange light play around in her vision.

She was so numb she hardly registered the man walking up the steps. Didn’t recognise the deep voice as it cursed at the suitcase getting stuck on the steps. Ignored the scuffed black boots that she had tried to polish. She didn’t bother looking at the stranger knocking on the door, even though his dark locks, though wet, would have made her run at him and never let him go. He rang the doorbell and still Rey would not look up. Finn will get it, she thought to herself. He must be expecting him.

He rang the doorbell again.

And again. On the fourth try, he just held it down, the tinkle barely making a sound as it merged with the falling rain and the sound of a crush of people counting down from 20. Rey slowly looked up at the man, annoyed with him - she just wanted to be alone - but then, she knew those shoes. She knew the fit of those jeans. She recognised the black coat coasting along knees she would know anywhere. She knew the feeling of the dark hair tickling around her breasts as he kissed her nipples. She knew that regal nose and those plush pink lips.

It took all her strength not to sit there and believe she was just imagining things, all her strength to stand up, making the swinging bench creak, all her strength to walk towards the man with open arms and leaking eyes, the throw falling from her shoulders to pool behind her like a puddle of her relief.

Ben turned to look at this shape emerging from the darkness, his mouth dropping open when he saw the shape was the very reason he was outside Finn’s house at the strike of midnight on Old Year’s Eve.

‘Rey.’ The word was a _sigh_ and a _prayer_ and a _plea_ , and Ben didn’t have to say anything else.

‘You came back to me,’ was the only thing she could get out before she pulled his head down towards hers and kissed him as though it was the last time she ever would.

As the clock struck 12, she resolved to **kiss him as though it was the last time every time**.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my silly story. Please note that it's not beta'd, and I'm maybe a little tipsy. :)
> 
> It's tough to be without the ones you love on an important night like New Year's. So this one is for everyone who is missing someone, for everyone who is grieving someone, for everyone who is afraid they won't see their loved ones again. I can't say anything to make it better, except for ' **You Are Not Alone** ', a la Kylo Ren.
> 
> Happy New Year!


End file.
